Tempting. Mouthwatering. Inviting. Appetizing. Enjoyable. Appealing. Satisfying. All words that can describe a delicious meal – and content marketing. When it comes to delivering a meal to a group of people, you want them to be intrigued by the menu, savor the food, and be satisfied while simultaneously yearning for more. These same concepts can easily relate to content marketing because you want people to be enticed by the concept you’re covering, enjoy what they read, have a take-away, and want to come back for more.

Let’s discuss ways your content can be designed to perform the same functions of a meal:

Don’t Let Your Content Sit Stagnant

Let’s say you set up your insurance website, considered it a one-time activity and forgot about it – adding no content to it over time. That’s like making a meal and leaving it on a table in the middle of nowhere, only to get cold with no one around to eat it. Unless you continuously contribute to your site through blogging and other social activity, you’re leaving it cold and abandoned with little potential to grow and attract visitors. In order to see healthy growth on the web, you need to engage in content creation continuously over time, because the more active you are and the more useful information you provide to the online world, then the more relevant you are to users and to the search engines.

Present it Well

In much the same way that a beautifully plated dish can inspire an appetite, properly executed content layout can lead to higher reader engagement. Headlines, the structure of your paragraphs, and imagery can make or break a piece of content. You want to produce something that is eye-catching, encourages someone to read on, provides the opportunity for a quick glance, and inspires some sort of action. Your headlines can be utilized as a marketing tactic to draw readers toward your content. The body of your content should be easy to follow – try using sub-headlines or bullet points to break up the sectors of your topic. And you should implement some form of call to action whether you want your viewers to get a free quote, sign up for emails or newsletters, or to leave a comment. When content is presented properly, it makes it easy for a reader to get a quick take away.

Now that I’ve shared the appetizer portion of this multi-part series on how to transform your agency’s content marketing strategy into a satisfying meal, you’ll have to wait a little. Let it digest before I move on to the main course.